Saturday, February 23, 2008

Escapades!

Oh yeah, I love me some "American Saute" from one of our local veg spots, Dharmas. Musty picked this up for us last night, and I had the leftovers for breakfast this morning. It's good stuff - a HUGE serving of baked tofu, greens, cabbage, carrots, califlower, broccoli, & brown rice with with tahini sauce. It's a great meal at all hours of the day: healthy, yummy, filling, and nourishing.

Today a few of us gave a little talk about our time in India, and of course I was spreading the Good News of veganism through cookies: I made a batch of the "you got peanut butter in my chocolate" cookies from "Eat Drink and Be Vegan." Yet another big success! Musty took one bite and declared "These are the best cookies you have ever made. EVER!" Wow! I saved a few for dessert with my grandpa, and the others were all gobbled up! Never to be seen again.

For the non-chocolate, non-nutty types I also made a batch of the "Lemon Poppyseed Sparkle Cookies" from ED&BV. Yum! I really loved these. Lemon poppyseed is always a great combo, and these are great. Tonight I made dinner for my grandpa... and it turned out that my aunt Sara was there too. We watched the Oscars together, which was fun even though hardly any of us had seen any of the movies. Hee hee. Still fun to see all the fancy people and the moving speeches. I'm a real sap for all things poignant and heartfelt. I made the Ceaser Salad from 'Nomicon. Yum! We all loved it. It was fun making the croutons and the yummy fancy dressing. It sure does make a lot of dressing, so I left the extra dressing for my aunt to make more salads for my Grandpa while I'm in China.

I also made us some calzones and brocolli. The calzones were *delicious*!! They had tomato sauce, VWAV "Green Garden Puree", sauteed mushrooms, and sauteed Sundried Tomato Tofurky Sausages. Dang! Some real yumminess. The dough was totally fantastic, it was the herbed, sourdough pizza dough I got at the farmers market last week. YUM. I'll definitely buy it again. By the way, I love that Green Garden Puree stuff. The only little changes I've made to the recipe are: saute the garlic, add 1 tsp salt, add 1 small can sliced black olives. It's great stuff for pizza, calzones, lasagna, manicotti, etc. If you haven't made it yet, I really recommend this recipe. Speaking of VWAV, the other day I made the "Fronch Toast" for breakfast & it was so fantastic! I love this recipe so much. For this recipe (and the crepes) I am forever indebted to Isa. When I became vegan, I never thought I'd enjoy french toast again... but instead we had a wonderful & delicious little breakfast party together! See that little half-banana? That's my nod to healthy eating.

I recently made the Potato Leek Cassoulet with biscuits from 'Nomicon. I have to say, it was really just okay. I didn't love it. I diligently plowed my way through all the leftovers, but I'm not sure that I'll make it again. Looks cool, though, huh?

We've been having some seriously blustering, wintery weathing lately, so I made a nice big batch of split pea soup. Oh yeah! YUM. I use my mom's nice recipe, so it tastes just like it's always tasted. Ahhh, comfort food - just like Mom used to make it! :)

I'll be gone for 10 days while I'm off in China. Thanks to you all SO MUCH for all the good freezable food ideas. I feel so grateful for this great community. I'm gonna make up a big lasagna tomorrow! That seemed to be the #1 suggestion. Thanks friends!

12 comments:

that Torta de Ceci looks wonderful, thanks for the recipe! And I really have to make those peanut butter/chocolate cookies, I think - that's the fifth or sixth time I've read them described as "the best cookies ever!" :D

I LOVE those PB-Chocolate cookies from "ED&BV." I cannot get enough of them. I usually don't like to make the same dessert more than once when there are so many new ones to try, but I've made those cookies several times! Sooooo good!

I've also made the Lemon Poppyseed, and I'm pleased to see that yours came out really flat, too! I thought they were delicious, but I was surprised to see that they weren't puffy like the rest of Dreena's cookies. I thought I did something wrong! Now that I know, maybe I can enjoy the taste more & not be self-conscious about my flat cookies. :)

Ooh, Amey, nice work! The cookies look fantastic. I haven't tried either of those yet, but I'm sure gonna. The salad and calzones look wonderful too. I've heard mixed reviews on the casoulet, but not every recipe is for everybody. Thanks for reminding me about the torta. That will be a great GF bread for me to try.

Ooooh, have a great time in China! I'm hoping some of your jet-setting vibes rub off on me, I need to get away so desperately! I can't wait to hear all about your trip.

Wow, you have been blogging up a storm lately! Ok, I need some of your bloggy vibes, too, lol!

Those lemon-poppyseed cookies are amazing, they were my biggest hit this past X-Mas. I also made the maple walnut ones from your 'zine a few weeks ago, which were so excellent. And that veggie/tofu sautée looks so good. I'd totally make a breakfast out of that.

That's awesome that you are in Santa Cruz! I should talk to Melisser, as well, about her experience in San Fran. We're at the VERY early stages of planning our move, but I figured if I posted about it, we'd have to go through with it. :) I don't want to let myself chicken out because it'll be such a big change. A very exciting change, but scary nonetheless! We're currently trying to figure out if we need 1 car in SF... I know there is good public transportation in the area, and it's a very walkable city. I'd much prefer NOT to have a car. But I'm wondering if we'd need one for exploring the surrounding areas--going to "wine country," the Santa Cruz boardwalk (by you!), etc. I am from the Midwest, so I am probably unnecessarily attached to having a car, but I don't want to feel stuck...